Diabetes Mellitus is an incurable chronic disease in which the body does not produce or properly utilize insulin. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas that regulates blood glucose. In particular, when blood glucose levels rise, e.g., after a meal, insulin lowers the blood glucose levels by facilitating blood glucose to move from the blood into the body cells. Thus, when the pancreas does not produce sufficient insulin (a condition known as Type 1 Diabetes) or does not properly utilize insulin (a condition known as Type II Diabetes), the blood glucose remains in the blood resulting in hyperglycemia or abnormally high blood sugar levels.
People suffering from diabetes often experience long-term complications. Some of these complications include blindness, kidney failure, and nerve damage. Additionally, diabetes is a factor in accelerating cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), which often leads to stroke, coronary heart disease, and other diseases, which can be life threatening.
The severity of the complications caused by both persistent high glucose levels and blood glucose level fluctuations has provided the impetus to develop diabetes management systems and treatment plans. In this regard, diabetes management plans historically included multiple daily testing of blood glucose levels typically by a finger-stick to draw and test blood. The disadvantage with finger-stick management of diabetes is that the user becomes aware of his blood glucose level only when he performs the finger-stick. Thus, blood glucose trends and blood glucose snapshots over a period of time is unknowable.
More recently, diabetes management has included the implementation of glucose monitoring systems. Glucose monitoring systems have the capability to continuously monitor a user's blood glucose levels. Thus, such systems have the ability to illustrate not only present blood glucose levels but a snapshot of blood glucose levels and blood glucose fluctuations over a period of time. Further, when monitoring the blood glucose levels, the glucose monitoring systems have the capability to output an alert notification to notify the user of an event, such as a hyperglycemic or hypoglycemic event. Although the alert features are a big advantage to managing diabetes, sometimes an alert, such as the loud sounding of an audible alarm, can occur at an inopportune time.
Additionally, the accuracy of continuous glucose monitoring systems depend on the proper and prompt relay of data information about minute to minute glucose levels from a sensor to a receiver component of the system. When the data information fails to reach the receiver, the lack of glucose data can not only affect the displayed glucose readings to the user, but also provide the user with a false sense of security.
Therefore, a need exists for a user to have the capability to selectively disenable and re-enable alert notification features of a glucose monitoring system for a predetermined period of time and for the analyte monitoring system to sound an alarm or otherwise alert the user to missed data packets so that the user can intervene.